City may pay $1.2M to the family of man killed by cop
Council will consider deal for the 2014 shooting by off-duty narcotics officer
The City of Houston would pay $1.2 million to the family of an unarmed man who was fatally shot by a Houston police officer in 2014, under a settlement scheduled to be considered by City Council Wednesday.
The potential settlement comes five years after narcotics officer Juventino Castro with the Houston Police Department was cleared of all wrongdoing by a Harris County grand jury in the shooting death of Jordan Baker, who was unarmed.
The shooting — and decision not to bring charges against Castro — came amid a national wave of highly publicized shootings of unarmed black people by police officers, many of whom avoided criminal investigations.
In Houston, Baker’s killing was a rallying point for local Black Lives Matter activists. Some applauded the proposed settlement on Monday.
“I am happy that Janet Baker is getting some justice, even though she can’t bring her son back,” said Ashton P. Woods, of Houston’s BLM chapter. “She deserves this peace.”
The settlement would be among the largest payouts related to a fatal police shooting in recent Houston history. In 2008, the city agreed to pay $1.5 million to the family of Eli Escobar, a 14-year-old who was fatally shot by a rookie officer five years earlier.
Baker’s mother filed the federal lawsuit in 2015 alleging the wrongful death of her 26-year-old son, as well as several violations of his constitutional rights.
Billy Mills, a Chicago-based attorney who represented the Baker family, said Monday that the settlement further proves the importance of civil rights litigation in fostering transparency or accountability, particularly in police shootings that often are investigated internally.
Absent lawsuits, Mills said, public disclosure “would be in the hands of the very government that employs or collaborates with the police officer who committed a wrong.”
In a brief statement, Mayor Sylvester Turner’s office said the settlement was reached after courtordered mediation and “reflects all parties’ election to prudently resolve disputed claims.”
Castro, a 10-year HPD veteran at the time of the shooting, was working an extra security job at a strip mall in the 5700 block of West Little York that had been the site of several robberies. Police said Castro pursued Baker because he matched the suspect in the breakins, after which Baker became belligerent and charged the officer.
Baker’s family maintained that he was targeted because of his race.
In the suit, the family said Baker was unlawfully detained and was left with multiple cuts and abrasions. He was shirtless and wearing flip flops when he began protesting the encounter, the lawsuit said, and was shot as he was trying to flee from Castro.
“He was shirtless, unarmed and posed no threat to the officer,” the family’s attorneys wrote. “This is not an isolated incident for the Houston Police Department.”
In 2018, U.S. Magistrate Judge Nancy Johnson in Houston ruled that Baker’s family had a viable case that Castro had used excessive deadly force and failed to administer medical care.
Johnson also noted that, from 2009 to 2014, HPD’s internal affairs division found that each of the 194 intentional shootings of civilians, including 80 who were unarmed, over that period were justified.
Since taking the department’s helm in 2016, Police Chief Art Acevedo has instituted several reforms intended to increase transparency, including requirements that body cameras start recording when officers exit their vehicles.
Acevedo also created a specialized unit for investigating officerrelated shootings or other potential misconduct.
The rate of HPD officer-involved shootings generally has been trending downward since Baker’s death. Last year, the department recorded 20 shooting incidents that left seven people dead, including the deadly Pecan Park raid that killed a couple, prompted federal charges against multiple officers and renewed scrutiny of the department’s oversight procedures.
Still, activists and lawyers say HPD needs to do more. Woods, of Houston’s Black Lives Matter chapter, said the potential settlement was a “good first step,” adding that HPD should do more training to combat implicit bias and should be more proactive in releasing body camera footage of shootings.
“The family deserves to know right off the bat” what happened, Woods said.
Doug Griffith, vice president of the Houston Police Officers’ Union, noted that state law prohibits agencies from immediately disseminating body camera footage without a court ruling unless police officials determine that it would further a law enforcement purpose.
“Unless there are going to be riots in the street, you don’t release it,” Griffith said.
Griffith said body camera footage would not have changed the Baker shooting because most offduty officers are not required to wear them unless they work second jobs at bars and clubs.
On Monday afternoon, for example, an off-duty HPD sergeant opened fire on a man allegedly pistol-whipping and robbing a homeless person in Midtown, according to police.
Acevedo said at a news conference that there is no footage of the shooting.